Thursday, October 25, 2012

THE BAU FEELS THE HEAT WHEN THEY HEAD TO THE FAMOUS SANTA MONICA PIER TO INVESTIGATE BURNED BODIES LEFT NEAR THERE, AND ROSSI RECONNECTS WITH HIS FORMER MARINE SERGEANT, ON “CRIMINAL MINDS,” WEDNESDAY, NOV. 14

The veteran actor's long-running CBS crime drama airs a new episode Wednesday (Oct. 24) -- with guest star Ray Wise ("Reaper") as a fearsome doctor -- opposite Game 1 of the World Series on FOX. "My feeling is that we'll get low numbers in San Francisco and Detroit," Mantegna reasons to Zap2it of the cities whose teams are in this year's Fall Classic. "I'm not so worried about the rest of the country.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

It is that time of year when you can vote for the shows to be nominated for a 2013 People's Choice award. This year Criminal Minds in up for a nomination for best TV Crime Drama, you can vote as often as you want!

With Criminal Minds in its 8th season, avid
viewers can’t help but find similarities between new and past episodes. This episode has aspects of The Fox, North
Mammon, Paradise and Children of the Dark.

Beth and Hotch’s scenes were very sweet and little
Jack is growing up – he has lost his baby teeth. It is wonderful to see Hotch smiling. I like that they didn’t just drop Beth’s
character, but are writing her out by her taking her dream job in New York. It
leaves the door open for possible visits and they are closing the circle on
that storyline by giving it closure instead of just dropping it with Beth never
to be mentioned again.

The case takes place in Kansas City, Kansas and its
environs where seemingly perfect families are being abducted and found dead on
the side of the highway, with the exception of the youngest child, a son. One family, the Yamadas, were found dead and
the BAU was called in. While the case
was being briefed, they find that another family has been abducted.

We find out there are cracks in the seemingly perfect
families – that the Yamada father had a gambling problem; the Acklin’s – father
was the subject of a lawsuit, was behind in his mortgage payments and had an
affair with Vanessa, their son Braden’s tutor (Braden had recently been
diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome), the teenage daughter, Mackenzie’s, drug problem and the mother suffered from
depression and owed money to loan sharks – not so perfect, despite Mrs. Acklin’s
idyllic Facebook postings and the photos of the happy family on the Yamada
family website.

We see the UNSUB making the Acklin family admit to
their shortcomings, which causes a rift amongst the family members and makes
them watch as he kills the tutor and the teenaged girl’s boyfriend who
supposedly got her hooked on drugs.

The UNSUB keeps the youngest child with him. The Yamada boy’s dead body was found while
the team is trying to find clues and the team surmises that the UNSUB uses the
youngest child as leverage against the families and also that he may identify
with the young boys.

Garcia finds a commonality between the two families –
they had both gone to a wilderness camp called Ravenswood Camp – a type of
counseling camp to try to bring families back together. This in addition to the cheery social media
postings that Garcia found had been visited numerous times each day by the same
person, whose IP address was routed around the world.

The painting of toy samurais I don’t understand,
except that they are a child’s toys and the UNSUB is painting them, so he could
have arrested development to that age, which could mean that the UNSUB
experienced a trauma at a young age and identifies with the young boys.

Braden uses some tools and escapes the house while the
UNSUB is out supposedly disposing of Vanessa’s body or abducting Mackenzie’s
boyfriend, Darren, who the UNSUB offered up for the mother, Debra, to choose
between his life and the money she owed to the loansharks.

Meanwhile, the team was putting together how the UNSUB
found out so much about the families and hit on that both families had recently
had their homes renovated/remodeled.
Hidden cameras were found throughout both homes. Garcia found that the same electrician worked
on both homes AND that he was one of the people who found Yamada boy’s body –
KA-CHING – case solved. Now to find him
before he kills the Acklin’s.

MEANWHILE, Braden didn’t make it too far with his
escape. The UNSUB found him as he was
running across the yard and the next time we see Braden, he is sitting in the
same chair that Vanessa and Darren were sitting in with the UNSUB telling the
family that if they killed themselves, they could save Braden and if they
didn’t the UNSUB would kill them all for the bad choices they made.

The Acklins are in hysterics, with much crying and
hand wringing and finally Debra, the mother, grabs the gun and shoots herself
to save Braden as the team rushes the room -
half to rescue the family and half to apprehend the UNSUB. Morgan finds there is no blood on Debra and
Alex found that the gun was loaded with blanks.
This scene seemed a little chaotic, like they were trying to quickly
wrap up the case so they could get to the more fun stuff at the end. I think they could have taken another minute
and wrapped it up more cleanly.

Garcia greets the team at the elevators with a tray of
drinks and tells them all that she loves them and wanted hugs from all of them.

The episode ends with Hotch and Beth talking about her moving to New York and Hotch telling her that New York was just a train ride
away and that they could still see one another.
They end it with them leaving the coffee shop/restaurant to check the
trains schedule.

Early on in the episode, Garcia tells the team that
Braden Acklin had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and Reid was
talking about the various aspects of Asperger’s and the fact that several
talented people had Aspie tendencies and Alex said something like, “like you?”
to him and Reid just barreled on and didn’t respond to her. Later, while he and Alex are going through
the Yamada house, she mentions her statement and apologizes for it and Reid
told her he didn’t even realize/recognize what she said but it made me wonder
whether he really didn’t notice or just didn’t acknowledge it.

The episode was good and the case was
interesting. There was a pretty good mix
between the team and victims – since the victims were still alive, the story
was centered on them, but since it was an interesting story, I didn’t mind.

Also of interest AJ Cook was featured in a CBS Cares
commercial during the episode which was about the fight against breast cancer.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Artists on Demand got the opportunity to have a virtual sit down with Joe Mantegna, who plays David Rossi on CBS' hit crime drama Criminal Minds. Hear what he has to say about the current season, his character, and his favorite episodes.

Season 8 has kicked off and we have already seen some pretty intense scenarios. What else are we going to get to see this season?
One thing we can look for is an episode that will explore the military background of Rossi during the Vietnam era.

Having joined the show in the middle of Season 3, was there an adaptation period for you, or did you just kind of fit right in? There was a short period of adjustment, but it was made easier by the fact that a large percentage of the crew was from my previous series JOAN OF ARCADIA, so in many ways it was coming to a familiar place.

Aside from the possibility of getting back together with his sick ex-wife a few seasons ago, we haven’t seen Rossi in any type of a romantic relationship. Is this something that is going to change any time soon?
Not sure about the romance angle for Rossi; he hasn’t had much luck in that department….but you never know.

Agent Rossi is quite an interesting man who is very good at what he does. What is your favorite quality of his?
To Read More: Artist On Demand blog

CHEAT TWEET: The stakes R rising 4 the BAU as they look 4 UnSub that goes from killing animals 2 people on #CriminalMinds 11/7 9pm http://bit.ly/PMO0Qi

“The Apprenticeship” – When prostitutes in Miami are discovered murdered in a similar style to local animals found dead there, the BAU must work fast to find an UnSub whose confidence is quickly escalating. Also, Morgan tries to increase Reid’s athletic skills by convincing him to join the bureau softball team, on CRIMINAL MINDS, Wednesday, Nov. 7 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Matthew Lillard (“Scream,” “Scooby-Doo”) guest stars as David Roy Turner.

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WHO WE ARE

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Criminal Minds Round Table. When we were positing names for this blog, and Sir Bedivere suggested Criminal Minds Round Table, we knew immediately that was the perfect name for our blog.

It fit in so many ways.

Many fans, and Ed Bernero (Criminal Minds' former Showrunner and Executive Producer) himself, compare the show and its characters to The Arthurian Legend and the Knights of the Round Table. Mr. Bernero even went so far as to say that he knew that the stories had to be “Arthurian” to appeal to the most people. The team meets to brief cases at a round table, and there are many parallels between our BAU team and the Knights and other Arthurian characters.

In addition, a Round Table discussion is what we want to have here about any and all topics Criminal Minds-related. In a Round Table discussion, each participant has equal status and equal time to present views. And finally, since this is going to be a group effort amongst a group of Criminal Minds fans, we are going to take turns around the table, with each of us posting about the show, our favorite characters and our favorite actors on the show.